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Updated: June 23, 2025
Therefore there exists an absolutely necessary Being as the ultimate real ground of all possibility; this Being is one, simple, unchangeable, eternal, the ens realissimum and a spirit. Parallel with this it distinguishes, also, between logical ground and real ground.
Thus reason was seduced from her natural courage; and, instead of concluding with the conception of an ens realissimum, an attempt was made to begin with it, for the purpose of inferring from it that idea of a necessary existence which it was in fact called in to complete.
All illusions in an argument are more easily detected when they are presented in the formal manner employed by the schools, which we now proceed to do. It follows, then, that some entia realissima are absolutely necessary beings. But no ens realissimum is in any respect different from another, and what is valid of some is valid of all.
But it is evident that reason has here presupposed that the conception of an ens realissimum is perfectly adequate to the conception of a being of absolute necessity, that is, that we may infer the existence of the latter from that of the former a proposition which formed the basis of the ontological argument, and which is now employed in the support of the cosmological argument, contrary to the wish and professions of its inventors.
Reason believes that it has discovered these requisites in the conception of an ens realissimum and in it alone, and hence concludes: The ens realissimum is an absolutely necessary being.
The same is the case with the transcendental proof of the existence of a Deity, which is based solely upon the harmony and reciprocal fitness of the conceptions of an ens realissimum and a necessary being, and cannot be attempted in any other manner. This caution serves to simplify very much the criticism of all propositions of reason.
The principle of complete determination, according to which of all the possible predicates of things, as compared with their opposites, one must belong to each thing, relates the thing to be determined to the sum of all possible predicates or the Idea of an ens realissimum, which, since it is the representation of a single being, may be called the Ideal of pure reason.
And if they tell us that He is called He, that He is the ens realissimum or the Supreme Being or any other metaphysical name, we are not contented, for we know that every metaphysical name is an X, and we go on asking Him His name. And there is only one name that satisfies our longing, and that is the name Saviour, Jesus. God is the love that saves.
SECTION VII. Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative Principles of Reason. The former cogitates its object either by means of pure transcendental conceptions, as an ens originarium, realissimum, ens entium, and is termed transcendental theology; or, by means of a conception derived from the nature of our own mind, as a supreme intelligence, and must then be entitled natural theology.
Ens realissimum is the only ens reale; all else is mere appearance. Just here, however, lies an indication of another line of thought. For what is an appearance, and what is it that appears? It can only be reality that thus appears; the 'mere' appearance is yet an 'appearance of reality. It might seem that this is to catch, not at a straw, but at the shadow of a straw.
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